Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed.

When the Fox Comes Calling

Chapter 13 - To a Flame

Shinichi sensed Kaito before he saw him. It was in the weight of an intense gaze and the prickling of warning across his scalp that whispered predator to his subconscious mind. Unprompted, Shinichi looked up from the register to scan the crowd.

His searching eyes found Kaito almost immediately. The fox caught his gaze and winked.

Shinichi could feel a flush climbing into his cheeks, so he forced himself to look away and respond to the next two customers. Then there was a lull, and, so abruptly that Shinichi could almost believe the man had teleported, Kaito was there.

"Hey there," he said by way of greeting. "You ready to go?"

"I need to wait for the volunteer who has the next shift," Shinichi replied, checking his watch and seeing that there was at least another five minutes before said next volunteer would be late. "Once they get here, I can go."

It was only then that he noticed that the fox was now empty-handed.

"How was the mochi?"

Kaito blinked in what appeared to be honest confusion, followed Shinichi's gaze to his empty hands then laughed. "Oh. Actually, I haven't tried them yet. The two boxes I got earlier were for my friend Aoko. She's running the trivia games booth, but something got mixed up, and some of their original prizes didn't come through. So I volunteered to gather a few suitable replacements for them."

"I didn't know there was a trivia booth," Shinichi commented, interest piqued. Can anyone play?"

"As far as I know, sure. Are you interested? Their booth's on the way to the picnic tables. We could stop by before we get lunch."

Shinichi smiled. "I'd like that."

Reaching under the counter, he pulled out a box of red bean mochi and set aside the lid, revealing four soft, beautifully round white treats. "Here. Try one. I think I'm allowed one box of each flavor or something as the person running the stall."

"Those are perks I can get behind," the fox said with a grin. "You sure it's all right for you to share them though?"

"I don't see why not."

Putting actions to his words, Shinichi picked up one squishy treat and offered it to the fox. Instead of taking the mochi, however, Kaito took Shinichi's wrist and lifted it so that he could duck his head and pluck the soft sweet treat directly from Shinichi's fingertips with his mouth. Then he drew back, chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.

"It's good," he pronounced. "You should try one too."

Shinichi reclaimed his hand the instant the fox's grip loosened like he'd been burned and tried very hard not to think about either how Kaito's larger hand had felt around his wrist (warm and strong) or the sensation of Kaito's soft lips brushing lightly over his fingertips as he'd stolen the proffered treat.

Swallowing hard, he snatched up another mochi and shoved the whole thing into his mouth at once to delay any further talking. He tried to ignore the amused gleam he could see dancing in those captivating, indigo eyes.

Shinichi's relief came in the form of a small, ginger-haired rabbit hybrid who, despite her diminutive size, turned out to be a professor in hybrid sociology (and the faculty advisor for the Student Cultural Association, which sort of explained her presence. Sonoko had wanted this stall staffed entirely by rabbit hybrids, but she hadn't found enough of them, especially with Ran being assigned to the takoyaki, and so had made the bold decision to approach the professor herself). She had already been contacted by the police and read their press release regarding shady outfits looking to kidnap rare hybrids. But she thanked him for the reminder and insisted that he save her contact information should any further developments on that front come to light. She would, he could already tell, be an excellent resource for disseminating subtle warnings and the like through the student body.

Business settled, Kaito and Shinichi left the mochi stall behind.

It was only as he felt the weight of Kaito's arm over his shoulders, guiding him through the various booths, that Shinichi realized with a start that he had been asked on—and just accepted—his first real date (the various outings Sonoko had forced him into with potential partners she'd picked out for him over the years didn't count).

He was on an honest to goodness date with none other than the Kaitou KID.

In broad daylight.

On his—their—very own university campus.

Part of Shinichi felt as though something was about to go terribly wrong. Someone was going to drop dead any minute now, or someone else was going to come running up to announce that there had been a major accident. Maybe some of the vendors from different stalls would get into an altercation. Or maybe one of that huge long line of customers salivating after Ran's takoyaki would take a bite of their savory treats and go into a seizure.

There were, literally, thousands of ways things could very abruptly go extremely, criminally, and even fatally wrong. Shinichi had already witnessed hundreds in his short lifetime and read about hundreds more. Not a week went by during which he couldn't add a few more cases to the list. Sonoko was, after all, well justified in accusing him of being some kind of living crime radar.

Of course, Shinichi was aware that his experiences were not representative of the norm—far from it (and thank god for that or the world would probably have ended already).

The strangest thing about his and Kaito's stroll through the rest of the Cultural Association's festival was that nothing strange happened. Everything was, for all intents and purposes, normal (as defined by people who were not Shinichi).

It was actually a little bit disconcerting (which said a lot about Shinichi's life, none of it complimentary) but definitely not unwelcome.

Shinichi discovered quite quickly that Kuroba Kaito was apparently quite well known around their campus. Every other person they passed seemed to be a friend, a classmate, an acquaintance or a fan. Cheerful greetings and well wishes followed them from the mochi stand all the way through the festival grounds as they made their way towards the picnic tables that had been set up near the main hot food stands. Listening to the chatter, Shinichi deduced that the fox had put on a magic show as part of the school's new year's celebration the previous year, and just about everyone who'd seen it had been so impressed that Kaito had subsequently received a deluge of requests to perform at parties and assorted venues. He'd even MCed for the wedding between two graduating seniors.

None of that really came as a surprise though. Kaitou KID had always been charismatic. And no one who'd ever attended one of KID's heists could doubt his skill in his chosen art.

What did surprise Shinichi, however, was the realization of just how many activities Kaito had to be juggling on a daily basis. In addition to his coursework, Kaito was actively building a career as a professional magician while also participating in the university drama club, the robotics club, and the outdoors club.

"What's the outdoors club?" Shinichi asked, puzzled. "It can't be people who like to be outside…"

Kaito laughed. "Yes and no. It's more like extreme outdoor sports and generally trying out cool outdoor activities. We do weekend trips for skydiving, kayaking, rock climbing and the like. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot to learn, and there's plenty of thinking on your feet. You should consider joining. Last summer, we organized a survival week in the mountains. We hired an instructor and everything. It was quite the adventure—and beautiful too."

"I'll think about it," Shinichi said. He enjoyed learning new things, but his life was so eventful already that he tended to prefer his downtime be more relaxing (and preferably involve a book). And speaking of his eventful life… "I'm afraid trips like that always end in murder for me."

Over the years, quite a lot of groups had ended up disbanded after Shinichi's first visit because of murder in the ranks.

Kaito just laughed. "They can't all do that."

"You'd be surprised," Shinichi muttered.

"Besides," the fox went on, undeterred. "You'd be going with me. Between the two of us, I'm sure we could head off any trouble before it got too serious."

Shinichi thought that sounded a little like tempting fate, but he reiterated that he'd think about it.

"Where do you find the time to do all these things?" the rabbit couldn't help but wonder. "I mean seriously, do you ever sleep?"

"I'm just awesome that way," the fox boasted. "Besides," he added, dropping his voice so that no one would overhear. "Better busy than bored, remember?"

Shinichi's lips twitched in contained amusement. "I remember, but there's busy and then there's this."

Kaito just snickered.

They reached the trivia stand that Kaito had said his friend was running, and Shinichi got another surprise.

Kaito had mentioned his friend Aoko several times during their conversations, but he had somehow failed to mention that the girl was none other than Nakamori-keibu's daughter.

Shinichi had seen the girl before at KID heists (she was hard to miss, considering she often came brandishing anti-KID signs, which tended to stand out against the seas of KID fans which was the typical backdrop to KID heists), but he'd never traded more than a passing greeting with her.

"It's really nice to meet you officially," she said, sticking out her hand for Shinichi to shake. "I know you work with my father a lot."

"I try," Shinichi said diplomatically as most of his dealings with Nakamori revolved around the man shouting at him to stay out of the way.

Aoko probably knew this because she giggled, looking amused and chagrined at the same time. "He can be a bit…passionate. It hurts his pride to need help, especially from people he thinks are still children, but I'm glad you can be there to watch his back anyway, even if he doesn't want it." Her face grew more somber then. "He's not getting any younger. I'm worried sometimes that he's going to overdo it and hurt himself. But on the other hand, it keeps his mind and body active, so maybe it's a good thing that KID's around. At least he's nonviolent. And he keeps Dad motivated to keep learning and coming up with new ideas."

Shinichi couldn't help but steal a sideways glance at Kaito. Then he realized that doing so was precisely the kind of action that might give their game away and hastened to change the subject.

"So how does this trivia game work? I thought you'd have a game show type setup, but this doesn't look like that. And I think I see a list of names there with points next to them. What do they represent?"

"Oh that." Aoko brightened, switching gears instantly. "Let me explain. We didn't want a game that required time blocks with contestants and all that, so what we did is we created bunches and bunches of culture and mythology-based trivia questions and ranked their difficulty from easy to insane. Each level of question has a different point value. Each person who wants to challenge the trivia gets ten minutes. During that ten minutes, you can choose any level question from any category like in a game show. If you get the answer right, you get all the points. If you get it wrong, you lose that many points. You answer as many questions as you can during your ten minutes. At the end, we total up your score and add you to the scoreboard. This evening, when the event is coming to a close, we'll announce who got the highest scores. The participants who end up in the first through sixth places all get prizes. And we have school pens for everyone who participates."

"Is sounds like fun," Shinichi said. "Can I register?"

"Of course." Aoko handed him a registration card then glowered at Kaito when he held out his hand. "Don't even think about it. You wrote more than half these questions. So no trivia participation for you."

"Fine, fine," Kaito said, raising both his hands in a placating manner though he looked, to Shinichi's eye, a tiny bit disappointed. "I'll just cheer Shinichi on."

Aoko's eyebrows shot up. "You're already on first name basis with Kudo-kun?"

"Well, I told him to call me Kaito, so I figured it was only fair."

"Bakaito, that's not how it works!" the girl huffed before turning to Shinichi. "I'm really sorry about him. He's never been great with manners."

"Hey!" Kaito squawked, indignant. "I resent that. My manners are impeccable."

Shinichi hid a smile behind his registration card. "It's okay. I don't really mind."

Kaito looked smug. "You see?"

Shinichi decided to head off further bickering by asking to start his round of trivia. Aoko wasn't the only person overseeing participants, but, as the person who'd explained the rules to him, she clearly felt it was her responsibility to facilitate his game.

Ten minutes later, Shinichi's name was added to the scoreboard in slot number three—a racnk which surprised him since he'd used up a lot of time on the two 'insane' level questions he'd challenged himself with (both of which had more than earned their label). Those questions had, however, also netted him a considerable chunk of points, so he supposed they must have balanced out.

"Congrats." The fox flashed him a charming grin that made Shinichi's insides turn abruptly into warm fluff. "I didn't actually expect anyone who wasn't majoring in ancient Japanese literature to get that last one."

Shinichi was rather embarrassed by just how pleased that made him.

"Don't forget to come back when closing time comes around to check whether you've won anything," Aoko reminded them before they left. "Oh, and here's your commemorative pen."

Shinichi smiled and accepted the rather sleek, black and gold pen. "Thank you, and I'll remember."

"We're going to get lunch now," Kaito added. "You want us to bring you anything, Ahoko?"

Aoko rolled her eyes but thought about it and nodded. "Actually, yeah. I could use something to eat. But I don't want it to be sweet. Just—find me a sandwich or something. Unless you find someone doing fruit smoothies, I could totally go for one of those. I didn't realize it was going to get so hot today."

"Right then. We'll see you in a few."

Just as he looped his arm through Shinichi's to tug him away from the trivia games booth, Kaito found himself face to face with a very familiar blond dog hybrid.

"Kuroba!" the newcomer exclaimed, jerking back from the near collision and scowling at the fox. "Watch where you're going."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Move it, will you? Shinichi and I have some fine dining to hunt down."

"Shinichi?" Hakuba's eyebrows shot up before he spotted Shinichi and they rose even higher in surprised recognition before lowering again in a dark scowl.

"And what exactly are you doing with Kudo-kun?" the blonde demanded like he thought he had caught Kaito in the midst of pulling a nefarious con on Shinichi.

"I'm taking him to lunch, obviously," the fox replied, the picture of innocence. "I literally just told you that."

"But…when…how did you…"

"If you're asking how we met, I was at the mochi stall when he came off shift, and he said he hadn't eaten yet. I hadn't either, so I asked if he'd like to join me."

"And he agreed?"

"I didn't kidnap him, if that's what you're asking."

Shinichi observed the interaction with a certain level of bemusement. First Nakamori-keibu's daughter, and now the son of a police superintendent who also happened to be a detective in his own right. Kaito was sure acquainted with a lot of law-enforcement types as a civilian for someone moonlighting as a thief. Shinichi wondered idly if that made the fox's job easier or harder. He could see it going both ways—maybe even both at once, come to think of it.

"Excuse me," Shinichi said politely into a pause in the interrogation (that was going nowhere fast). "Is there a problem? Only I would really like to get something to eat before I have to go back to tending the mochi stall."

Hakuba apologized for holding them up even though he looked like he sort of wanted to say that yes, there was a problem. He clearly felt this wasn't the time for the conversation he wanted to have however, as all he said was, "It was a pleasure seeing you again, Kudo-san. I hope we have the chance to speak more extensively soon."

Kaito rolled his eyes but Shinichi subtly elbowed him to tell him to stay quiet before they ended up stuck here for the rest of Shinichi's break. The fox must have gotten the hint because he refrained from further comment until they were well out of earshot of both canine hybrids.

"There are days when I seriously wish he'd gone to England for university," he told Shinichi. "Except, if he had, I suppose Aoko would have wanted to go too, and then I wouldn't be able to keep an eye on her."

"I didn't know you and Hakuba-san were friends," Shinichi commented, unable to keep the hint of amusement from his voice. "For a thief, you seem to spend a lot of your free time around law enforcement types."

The fox pulled a disgusted face and mimed gagging for emphasis. "That nuisance is not my friend. He's the annoying guy my best friend had the poor taste to fall in love with and who I must therefore tolerate."

"I'm guessing the tolerating goes both ways," the rabbit observed. "He knows you're KID."

It wasn't a question. He'd seen it in the blonde's eyes and suspicious demeanor.

Kaito scoffed. "He suspects. But he can't prove it. He was a huge pain back in high school when he was always trying to find ways to out me, especially to Aoko since, ah…" Kaito hesitated a moment, steeling a glance at Shinichi's curious face. Then he let his breath out in a rush and plunged onward. "Aoko and I dated a bit while we were in high school, and he was jealous. He wanted to show her that I wasn't the man she thought I was and that I was just using her for her connection to the police or some nonsense like that. She wouldn't buy it though, and he eventually realized that trying too hard to prove it to her would only alienate her. Well, that and he finally got it through his thick skull that I wasn't taking advantage of Aoko for her contacts. So he stopped accusing me at every opportunity."

"So you two have sort of reached a truce."

"Sort of. He doesn't pry too much into my work outside a heist, and I occasionally give him tips on how to make Aoko happy. That's the one thing we can agree on, so it works out. We both want Aoko to be happy."

Shinichi nodded slowly, thinking that over and trying to pick through the tangle of feelings that had arisen in himself at the story.

"So you and Aoko-san were together in high school."

"For only about a year at the start of it. But…well, then I started my night job, and it started taking up more and more of my time and attention. That, and the secrets just kept piling up. We…drifted apart. By the start of senior year, we were basically back to being like siblings. Although, to be honest, when I look back, I don't think we were ever really meant to be. We cared—care—about each other, but there was always something missing. And it took us the year or so we tried being together to realize it wasn't something we would find. Although sometimes I think the missing piece was all on my end, and Aoko just finally accepted it and realized it was time to move on."

Kaito fell silent then, lost in old memories. The melancholy in his eyes looked wrong to Shinichi, who was accustomed to seeing them sparkling with mischief and wicked schemes and delight for the game and the challenge of the race.

Reaching out on an impulse, he laid a hand on Kaito's arm. The fox stopped walking in surprise to look at him, and Shinichi smiled, tilting his head back a little so that he could look the fox in the eyes.

"Whatever happened, you two have clearly moved past it. I can tell just by watching you two. And if you're both happy where you are now then that's all that matters."

The thief blinked once, slowly, then broke into a lopsided smile so tender that it made Shinichi's breath catch.

"You're right. And thank you."

It was Shinichi's turn to blink. "For what?"

"For being here. With me. For listening. For understanding. For being you."

Shading deeply pink at the magician's soft and heartfelt words, Shinichi started to speak, realized he had absolutely no idea what to say, and ended up just standing there looking like an idiot.

Kaito seemed to get what he was feeling though and laughed. The fox reached over to ruffle Shinichi's hair then took his hand and gave it a tug.

"Come," he said. "I did promise you lunch. So what would you like?"

-To Be continued-